The Relationship among EFL Learnersí Self-Regulation, Locus of Control, and Preference for Vocabulary Acquisition

Learning vocabulary has always been a major concern for second/foreign language researchers, and particularly in recent years self-regulation, locus of control and learnersí preference for learning have been the focus in the related literature. This study intended to investigate the relationship among EFL learnersí self-regulation, locus of control, and preference for vocabulary acquisition. To this end, 116 EFL university students (79 female, 37 male) participated in the study. In order to collect the required data, two questionnaires and one vocabulary levels test were utilized: The ICI to measure learnersí locus of control, SRCvoc to measure learnersí self-regulation, and VLT to measure learnersí vocabulary size. The results reveal that there was a significant relationship between EFL learnersí locus of control and preference for vocabulary acquisition. Additionally, the results reveal that locus of control could significantly predict the vocabulary acquisition preference. Furthermore, the findings reveal that: (a) there was no significant relationship between EFL learnersí self-regulation and preference for vocabulary acquisition, (b) there was no significant relationship between EFL learnersí self-regulation and locus of control, and (c) self-regulation could not significantly predict vocabulary acquisition preference.